Elsie Mackay

{{Infobox person

| honorific_prefix = The Honourable
Lady

| name = Elsie Mackay

| image = Hon. Elsie Mackay.jpg

| caption = Mackay in 1922

| birth_date = 1893

| birth_place = Simla, British India

| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1928|3|13|1893|8|21}}

| death_place = Lost in the Atlantic Ocean

| nationality = British

| occupation = Actress, Interior designer, Aviator

| spouse = {{marriage|Dennis Wyndham|1917|1922|end=Annulment}}

| other_names = Poppy Wyndham, Lady Elsie Mackay

}}

Elsie Mackay (21 August 1893 – 13 March 1928) was a British actress, jockey, interior decorator and pioneering aviator who died attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean with Walter Hinchliffe{{cite news

|title=Two Women

|date=26 March 1928

|work=Time

|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787033,00.html

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101121003702/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787033,00.html

|url-status=dead

|archive-date=21 November 2010

|accessdate=9 August 2008

}} in a single engined Stinson Detroiter.[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/making_history/making_history.shtml BBC Radio 4 Making History – Elsie Mackay – article and downloadable broadcast] Her stage name as an actress was Poppy Wyndham.

Biography

Elsie Mackay was born on 21 August 1893 in Simla, West Bengal, India, to James Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape of Strathnaver, a British colonial administrator in India who became chairman of P&O and Jean Paterson Shanks. Her father was serving as President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, as a member of the Legislative Council of the Viceroy of India, and as a member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India.

She was reportedly disinherited by her family after eloping with actor Dennis Wyndham to be married on 23 May 1917. She appeared on the stage and screen as Poppy Wyndham from 1919 to 1921. This marriage was annulled in 1922.Many sources confuse and conflate her career with that of the Australian born actress of the same name, but she was still performing after 1935.That Elsie Mackay was married to the English actor Lionel Atwill from 1920 until their divorce in 1928.

As Poppy Wyndham she was the first woman jockey in England, and in her short career on the turf she piloted no less than a dozen winners under the barriers. In the few events from which her sex did not bar her, her colours - yellow and blue - were always present, and always were heavily backed.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

Filmography

Poppy Wyndham's film career included:{{cite news

|title=Movies: About Tidal Wave

|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/113773/Tidal-Wave/overview

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605223327/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/113773/Tidal-Wave/overview

|url-status=dead

|archive-date=5 June 2008

|accessdate=9 August 2008

| first=Brooks

|department=Movies & TV Dept.

|work=The New York Times

|date=2008

| last=Barnes

}}[http://www.citwf.com/person443625.htm The Complete Index To World Film since 1895][http://www.hollywoodupclose.com/movie_stars/celebrity-filmography-Poppy+Wyndham Hollywood upclose – database for Poppy Wyndham]{{Dead link|date=August 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

A Great Coup (1919) as Kate Hampton
Snow in the Desert (1919)
Many a Slip (1919) as The Girl
A Dead Certainty (1920) as Pat Stone
The Town of Crooked Ways (1920) as Queenie Clay
The Tidal Wave (1920) (as Carmen Hale / Columbine)
A Son of David (1920) as Esther Raphael

Interior design

After the marriage to Wyndham was annulled she returned to her family and developed a career as an interior decorator, creating lavish interiors, state rooms and public spaces for her father's shipping line, the P&O. In 1923 she launched the {{RMS|Maloja}}, and went on to design much of the interiors for the four P&O "R" class ships of 1925: SS Rawalpindi, {{SS|Ranchi}}, {{SS|Ranpura}} and {{SS|Rajputana}}, plus the {{RMS|Viceroy of India}} in 1927.[http://www.freewebs.com/shippinglines/ships1920to1930.htm P & O Line Ships (and technical data) from 1920 to 1930] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100130222100/http://www.freewebs.com/shippinglines/ships1920to1930.htm |date=30 January 2010 }}

Flying

In 1923, she took up flying, gaining her pilot's licence at the De Havilland Flying School, probably the second woman since World War I after 'Mrs Atkey',{{Cite web |url=http://www.deltaaviation.co.uk/DHSOF/about/D_History.htm |title=History of the De Havilland Flying School |access-date=29 May 2008 |archive-date=15 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081015124747/http://www.deltaaviation.co.uk/DHSOF/about/D_History.htm |url-status=dead }} bought a plane,[http://www.ayrshirepost.net/ayrshire-news/local-news-ayrshire/girvan-news/2008/03/26/so-brave-and-beautiful-102545-20676715/ Ayrshire Post article – So Brave and so Beautiful] and expressed a determination to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic. She was regarded as a contemporary role model amongst women, with dark looks, graceful manner, and a habitually well-dressed and bejewelled appearance. She was noted for driving her Rolls-Royce at great speed and was a familiar sight in her Avro biplane in the skies over South Ayrshire and Wigtownshire.[http://www.jamd.com/search?assettype=g&assetid=3247971&text=Poppy+Wyndham Picture of Elsie in her Avro Biplane at Jamd.com] She even participated in an "outside loop", the most dangerous of all stunts in air, with Capt. E. C. D. Herne as her pilot. During this manoeuvre her safety-strap broke but she clung to bracing wires while her body swung outside the plane like a stone twirled on the end of a piece of string. She was one of the first women in Britain to gain her Royal Aero Club pilot's licence and was later elected to the advisory committee of pilots to the British Empire Air League.

Transatlantic flight

File:Glenapp Church Stained Glass (cropped).jpg

To achieve her transatlantic ambition Mackay bought a Stinson Detroiter, having been impressed by the aircraft during Ruth Elder's failed 1927 transatlantic attempt (despite an oil leak causing the failure {{convert|300|mi}} from the Azores over the Atlantic[http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/elder.html Hargrave – Profile of Ruth Elder]). It was shipped from the US to Britain and delivered to the Brooklands motor racing track, which at the time was also used as an airfield. She named it Endeavour. It was a monoplane with gold tipped wings and a black fuselage, powered by a nine-cylinder, {{convert|300|hp}} Wright Whirlwind J-6-9 (R-975) engine, with a cruising speed of {{convert|84|mph}}.[http://www.wwi-models.org/mail-archive/archive.cci/824 World War I Modeling Page – WGR Hinchliffe forum]

In early March 1928, the Daily Express discovered that Captain Hinchliffe and Mackay were preparing for a transatlantic attempt by carrying out test flights at RAF Cranwell and were staying at the George Hotel in Leadenham{{Cite web |url=http://www.thegeorgeatleadenham.co.uk/ |title=History of The George Hotel at Leadenham |access-date=28 May 2008 |archive-date=9 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809040345/http://thegeorgeatleadenham.co.uk/ |url-status=dead }} near Grantham. The story was silenced by Mackay's threatened legal action as she intended to depart in secret while her father was in Egypt, having promised her family she would not make the attempt.

At 8:35 am on 13{{nbsp}}March 1928, Endeavour took off from RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire,[http://www.wwi-models.org/mail-archive/archive.cci/824 World War I Modeling Page -Hinchliffe forum] with minimal fuss as Hinchliffe had told only two friends he was going and Elsie registered under the pseudonym of 'Gordon Sinclair'.'[http://ngb.chebucto.org/Newspaper-Obits/xxviii2.shtml Old News of Newfoundland] Approximately five hours later, at 1.30 pm the chief lighthouse keeper at Mizen Head on the south west coast of Cork, Ireland saw the monoplane over the village of Crookhaven. A French steamer later reported seeing them still on course, but nothing else is known.Roseberry, C.R. (1966), The Challenging Skies: The Colorful Story of Aviation's Most Exciting Years, 1919-1939, pp. 132-134. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. A crowd of 5,000 is reputed to have waited for them at Mitchel Field, Long Island. In December 1928, eight months later, a single piece of identifiable undercarriage (a wheel with a serial number on it) washed ashore in north west Ireland.

Commemoration

Elsie Mackay is commemorated by a stained glass window in the chancel of Glenapp Church in the parish of Ballantrae, Ayrshire (where her father owned the Glenapp estate)..[http://www.ballantraeparishchurch.org.uk/Ballantrae/Glenapp_History.html Ballantrae Parish Church] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321232315/http://www.ballantraeparishchurch.org.uk/ballantrae/glenapp_history.html |date=21 March 2016 }} Rhododendrons, now somewhat overgrown, spell out "Elsie" on the opposite side of the glen.({{coord|55.0288|-5.014}}) A street is named after her in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador.{{Cite web |url=http://www.gaflight.org/street%20names.htm |title=Gander's Historic Street Names |access-date=29 May 2008 |archive-date=5 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605192327/http://www.gaflight.org/street%20names.htm |url-status=dead }} Her financial legacy was the Elsie Mackay Fund, a £500,000 trust bequeathed by her father that was left to the British nation on 12 December 1928, for 50 years and used to help pay off the national debt.[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=7&CATID=-2088082&FullDetails=True&Gsm=2008-02-12v National Archives – Elsie Mackay Fund][https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1978/dec/04/elsie-mackay-fund Parliamentary reference to the Elsie Mackay Fund in Hansard]

References

External links

{{IMDb name|0943914|Poppy Wyndham}}
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/making_history/making_history_20080527.shtml BBC Radio 4 Making History – Elsie Mackay overview]
[http://www.elsie-mackay.co.uk/ West over the Waves – Elsie Mackay tribute site] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808194956/http://www.elsie-mackay.co.uk/ |date=8 August 2017 }}
[http://www.airliners.net/photo/Scenic-Airways/Stinson-SM-1-Detroiter/1309615&tbl=photo_info&photo_nr=1&prev_id=&next_id=NEXTID Images and Info of Stinson Detroiter SM-1 at Airliners.net]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20161103234800/http://www.crossingthehorizonbook.com/ Crossing the Horizon, a novel based on Elsie Mackay's flight]

Category:1893 births

Category:1920s missing person cases

Category:1928 deaths

Category:People from Ballantrae

Category:Nobility from South Ayrshire

Category:20th-century Scottish actresses

Category:Actresses from Himachal Pradesh

Elsie

Category:Daughters of British earls

Category:British aviation pioneers

Category:Scottish aviators

Category:British women aviators